Thursday, April 24, 2008

USA Film Fest movie preview: Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead

By John P. Meyer

Professor Robert Blecker teaches at New York Law School, and he's made a side-career for himself by serving as a media talking head on the subject of capital punishment. Almost uniquely among his academic peers, Blecker strongly supports the death penalty as applied to the most heinous of convicted criminal offenders.

Which makes him an unlikely candidate for the friendship of a man named Daryl Holton, who shot and killed in cold blood his four children in Shelbyville, Tennessee in 1997.

Yet, not so unlikely as it might seem, because - as Blecker comes to discover - Daryl agrees with Professor Blecker that he (Daryl) deserves to die; and he's trying in every way possible to eliminate the legal appeals process that would postpone or perhaps even override his execution.

Documentary director Ted Schillinger begins with a profile of Robert Blecker the man, establishing the personal basis for his widely-expressed beliefs that subjectivity and emotion are requisite components in the punishment phase deliberations of capital case juries; firing squads are preferable to lethal injection; and, in cases involving the worst of the worst, "they deserve it" (i.e., the death penalty). Blecker goes so far as to say that, in such cases, it is both necessary and just to hate and want to kill a criminal defendant - regardless of legal statutes.

In Daryl - who he meets on his tour of Tennessee's death row - Blecker discovers an erudite and seemingly intelligent individual whose decision to murder his children seems spectacularly out of character. Much of the screen time of the story is spent following Blecker as he attempts to ferret out the reasoning behind Daryl's acts, which equate more to insanity than the actions of a sharp-witted and seemingly well-adjusted individual.

Daryl remains unremittingly devoid of remorse throughout their conversations regarding the crime, which puzzles (and maddens) Blecker beyond all reason. This appears to be a fellow who, under other circumstances, might become a social acquaintance or confidante - it's easy to imagine the two men sitting down across a chess table over brandies (or longnecks) - and yet Daryl claims to have killed his kids in order to spare them a life of poverty under the public housing roof of an incompetent mother. Plenty of kids have gone on to lead productive lives despite far more severe childhood deprivations.

Without apparent manipulation, the documentary in its final stages takes an almost Lecterish turn, with the viewer (and Blecker) attempting to determine whether Daryl has turned sly and manipulative or succumbed to the sort of cowardice he has heretofore exhibited none of. The truth, when it emerges, surprises both Blecker and us, and makes this challenging and emotionally charged film a challenge well worth rising to.

MOST MEMORABLE SCENE: Blecker sitting across a metal table from Daryl in the Riverbend death row interview room, attempting to make him admit that he killed his children out of revenge for his wife's taking up with another man. On the wall behind Blecker is a big red button marked "PANIC."

MOST AMUSING SCENE: Family members around the dinner table listening to Blecker drone on about Daryl and his motivations; they don't actually roll their eyes, but you can see them thinking about it.

HE DOES THEM BOTH PRETTY WELL, ACTUALLY: "I do irreverence better than eloquence" - Daryl to Blecker

AND SO IT BEGAN: "I knew as a child that Hitler deserved to die" - Robert Blecker

INSIDER'S POV: "I think you support the death penalty for the wrong reasons." - Daryl to Blecker

Related stories

• Interview with Robert Blecker, subject of the documentary Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead (April 25, 2008)

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• Arts > Movies / Film > Film Festivals > USA Film Festival